A Cage For Your Own Bird
by bummersummer
Summary: Balalaika gets a taste of Revy's fabled Whitman fever. And begrudgingly, understands. If she could only get that through Revy's thick skull. Yup, slash.


Jo, I read your comment about how Boris would be understanding- I totally agree! I really appreciate your reviews and insight. You make me want to go on and on about my headcannons for Bal and Revy! And, I of course, love hearing yours. However, I'm still trying on introducing Boris in a correct way to Bal/Revy, that's kinda in character.

This story includes mentions of **past rape**, because it ties in with Revy's CW fever and her constant need to cover up her vulnerability; not intended for shock value.

Also Balalaika won't die. This is not a death fic in anyway!

* * *

In Revy's nightmare she remembered his patchy beard that scarped on her cheek when he dragged his tongue up her face; she remembered his beer gut pressed against her, and the kicks he rammed into her sternum. It _hurt_, a lot, and her back burned from being pushed back and forth on unforgiving cement.

_"Do you understand?" The cop had muttered, like he's losing patience, like he's going to fucking kill her if she doesn't respond fast enough. "Don't fight, don't be difficult."_

She still tried to punch him anyway.

There was the jail cell door that remained open after he left, his work merely satisfactory to himself, adjusting his belt as he left the building. Revy pulled her shirt down over her skinny torso, pulled her ratty jeans up. She ignored the foreign feeling between her legs. Revy had wiped his saliva off her face with the sleeve of her jacket and left. What was she? Thirteen? Fourteen? It slides away in an awful blur, a horrific illusion that appears solid at first glance. His horrifyingly human actions on her; yet a simple act of domination.

She felt like a sick, exhausted animal, with it's leg trapped in a bear trap for days, waiting for the hunter.

Domination, that funnily enough, sounded just like what it meant. Revy remembered her prison beatings; fingering tougher girls in the gungy shower areas. Her fingers curled inside them and she saw them shudder and for a moment, forget the prison hierarchy. The roles switched and Revy forgot her black eye.

Then, she finally gets to actually kill someone. Then, the ball gets rolling. Then, she starts to feel better. Not even better, but fantastic. The elation, the brutal command, the authority, over ending someone's life made the memories no longer trespass into the front of her mind. She enjoyed the shivering little piggies in front of her, fattened for the slaughter. They stopped being people, only wretched things, like herself, all looking for somebody to suffer for them.

But the thoughts, _fuck her brain,_ lurked. And from it came an episodic nightmare where her imagined control dissipated and she was spread open again, for all the taking in the world. Some wounds will never heal, and sometimes Revy feels them filling with blood.

* * *

Balalaika had once sat with Dutch, and they together shared a bottle of rather expensive bourbon. They'd chuckled over their experiences together, how they met, and how different they are today. Dutch had always been an enigmatic character to her. He fished her from the ocean but never hung it over her head. It was simply business. She enjoyed his stories; despite raising an eyebrow at his hesitant mentions of Vietnam. They were not war buddies in any way, shape or form. Not that she wanted that.

"You know, speaking about the Nazi's," Dutch started after he emptied his glass. He rubbed his temples before reaching for a cigarette.

"Hm?" Balalaika tilted her head, humoring him. She tapped a finger on her held cigar, shaking some of the ash off.

"Revy sometimes.. you know. Loses her mind. It's some damn thing about people knowing too much about her. Hell if she'd ever explain it to me." Dutch held the cigarette between his lips and sparked a flame to it, until it was cherry red.

"How very mysterious," She smiled slightly. "Doesn't Two Hands enjoy making a bit of a mess? She _was_ the one to steal a new employee for you. Rock, is it? Seems decent enough."

"Yeah, even though we had no way to contact that company. No bank accounts. Nothing," Dutch shrugged. "Revy'd been fine for a while, no 'episodes' or as me and Benny like to call it, "Whitman fever". But with Rock and her talkin'- she fell into it. Again. Almost created a whole goddamn mess. He's a nice kid, too."

"Will this interfere with her work ethic?" Balalaika took a pull of her cigarette and leaned back in the leather chair. She raised her glass to her lips and took a small sip, mindful of her lipstick. It burned comfortingly on the way down.

"Nah, she acted the same way when Benny came on board. It'll pass, but damn, I pity her."

* * *

It'd been a long minute since they'd spent the night together. Between business and the countless thugs, Balalaika had been near out of the picture. Revy'd visited for mere minutes of interaction, before being forced to leave lest they be caught by one of Balalaika's soldiers. Made sense, in a depressing way. Hotel Moscow's main woman being an actual dyke. The amount of ammunition the other gangs could use against her- not even considering the other minor shareholders of her Mafiya that _weren't_ her men.

Tonight didn't work in the way that neither of them had planned.

"_Revy,_" Balalaika hissed, holding Revy's hands nearly above her head, her arms bent slightly. The blonde pressed against Revy's still form, pining her to the wall. Balalaika's hands clenched around her tanned wrists, darkening the flesh into a soft violet. A bruise bloomed on Revy's left cheekbone, from where a startled fist hit her so hard she made a worrying thunk against the wallpaper. Balalaika had paused for a second, waiting to hear any sound from her men or anyone else in the building.

"I don't know what's gotten into you, but for your sake I hope you'll snap out of it." The grip on her hands became tighter, but Revy made no remark to the pain.

It was late, and catching a view of the alarm clock read that it was about one. Balalaika had awoken to the gunslinger located at the far wall that her bed faced, near where she'd abandoned her twin guns on the dresser. She'd shot from her bed; in a few quick steps Balalaika had thrown Revy to the wall, sliding her hand across the old dresser to push the guns onto the floor. They skidded against the wooden floor, knocking against each other.

Revy had returned in pushing herself off the wall, attempting to spin around Balalaika as she headed towards her. A quick fist smacked Revy across the face. She dizzied, but her stoic demeanor remained.

"Let me go. Let me go, Fry Face, let me paint this fucking town a brand new shade of red, huh? What about it, sis? Might accidentally get some of your men into the fucking fray, though. They'd be hard to shoot around. Shit, do they count for two people, instead of one?" There was a lack of mirth in Revy's tone. There was a lack of emotion- even bare humanity- in her voice. It sounded automated, just trying to sound offensive. Begging for a conflict.

"Two Hands.. look at me." Balalaika ground her teeth, her blonde locks falling over her shoulders, stopping at the sides of Revy's bare torso. "I promise you, if you even try to leave this room.. I'll put a hole in your skull with one of your own pathetic guns."

Revy glared, but there lacked anger in its gaze. The bare amount of moonlight that scattered from the blinds showed a lack of usual shine.

"A night alone between us, finally... it had been a few months, hadn't it? And you decide to pull this. Dutch mentioned this... aggravating behavior. What was it? Some ridiculous name for it."

There was no reply, and Balalaika continued.

"Let me make a lucky guess as to what this is. Haunted by your past? Life wasn't very nice when you were young, hm? Your father beat you, savagely, from what you mentioned. A lot of people probably did. Outstanding warrants in New York. From what I've heard about American prisons- it's no guessing game to know what _you_ had to do, or what others had to do to you. Get a hold of yourself, Rebecca. This won't solve anything." Balalaika murmured, her gentle tone not masking the spite. Her grip slackened a fraction, testing to see if Revy would retaliate.

A sharp shudder broke from the gunslingers mouth, and her taut body softened as if she suddenly grew tired. Balalaika eyes widened in curiosity, as Revy hung her head. Breaking their eye contact, there was another sound of a forced inhale of air. Anger seemed to drain out of her; only to be replaced by bitterness. "Sis. Let go of me. I won't try anything. Especially against a fucking war maniac like you."

"I'll trust you on that." Balalaika slowly removed her grip on her, the purple on her wrists beginning to flourish. Revy drew her arms to her sides, fists clenched. She bared her teeth at the ground, and quickly then squinted her eyes.

The bedroom filled with silence, except for the rattling air conditioner, old one from the eighties that never managed to die. A wave of exhaustion came over Balalaika, as it always did, always on the sleepless nights she'd lie through, gazing up at the ceiling. It didn't matter. Her day started at five anyway.

A sniff brought Balalaika back from her brief haze, her eyes focusing back on Revy. A shred of light from the blinds slid across Revy's face, and to the blonde's muted shock, tears had welled up in her brown eyes.

"Fuck you, fucking bitch." Revy closed her eyes, tightly, in an effort to hold back the tears. Humiliated, she rubbed a fist roughly against her left eye, not caring if she put pressure on her bruise. She's used to this, isn't she? Revy had her eyes shut and she looked like she's steeling herself. Taking these deliberate slow breaths like she was counting to herself in her head. It's not working so well, but she's trying. It's a conscious, floundering effort.

She opened her blotchy eyes and looked up at Balalaika as if she finished running a long marathon. Sick, exhausted pain. Something in Balalaika's chest tightened. She didn't respond to the 'bitch' comment, because it was true. It was a blow below the belt, and it was apparent in the pain that flourished in Revy's red, teary eyes. Balalaika couldn't relate to that type of loss of power, sure men had attempted it; rape, pillage, and burn was kind of implied in any war throughout history. Even if the history books had scrapped it, she remembered men from both sides crawling up beside her like some insect. That never ended well for them.

Balalaika reached out, long nails gently dragging along Revy's cheek before bending into cupping her face, her thumb stroking her cheekbone. Revy once again closed her eyes at the touch, like she fell asleep for a second.

"I'm sorry. Who am I to pretend to understand?" The Russian's voice was tight.

Revy barely nodded, leaning her head into Balalaika's hand like a needy cat. A stray, tiny tear wormed its way down in between Balalaika's thumb and pointer finger. The blonde remained composed, but the strange tightening feeling returned once more.

"Rebecca.. Two Hands, let's go lie back down. I don't have enough time for this. Nothing is here except the two of us."

Balalaika stepped away, and walked uneasily back towards the bed. The room felt smaller then before, and she wondered if it was her muted panic or her tiredness that created that mental trick. Or was it always on the small side? She couldn't remember. Sitting on her side of the bed, she stared at the alarm clock again, instead just focusing on the hard red light.

Looking back over her shoulder, brushing her unkempt hair away from her sight, Revy remained leaned against the wall, hands now grasping at the wallpaper behind her. Wide eyes gazed out at the bookcase across from her, or maybe at nothing.

"Revy." Balalaika patted the bed beside her. A spot of moonlight lit the pillows draped across the bed

"_Look at me._" Revy parrots Balalaika from earlier. Her eyes narrowed, and her head turned away from the blonde. "Look how broken I am. How disgusting. How- How fucked I am,"

"And yet I care for you _anyway_." Balalaika replied after a beat, her fist clenching the rumpled cream-colored sheets. Even under the weight of sleep her back remained straight, her shoulders broad.

Revy looked back, her face turned soft and slack. Sleepiness dawned over her face, and she loosely took a step towards Balalaika. Her hands unfolded and hung limply at her sides, her shoulders dropping. The tank top and the faded underwear she wore did nothing to stop the continuous workings of the air conditioner, and she gave a slight shiver. Her hipbones protruded over the underwear; Balalaika made a mental note to make her eat something other than beer and cigarettes.

Her tanned legs pushed her, like a robot, towards not her side of the bed, but the owned side.

She sat down next to Balalaika, their knees touching. Wordlessly, Revy avoided her gaze and pressed closer, going from grazing knees to pressing flush thigh to thigh. Balalaika remained still, watching. She's shaking again, shaking harder then before and she hasn't blinked once. Revy's long fingers go to the sides of her hips, gripping onto the bed like it's supposed to anchor her. She just stared at the floor, as if memorizing the patterns in the antique pine floors.

Balalaika lifted her hand slowly, as not to surprise her. She was like a wounded animal; there's a want to comfort it but a primal knowing that there's a high damn chance it'll snap at you. Her arm looped around to the other side of Revy's head that doesn't face her, and pulled her head towards her. Revy allowed it, allowed herself to let her head lay on the blonde's shoulder. Stiffly, at first, then melting into soft mess, as Balalaika's hand that had pushed her head onto her shoulder was now stroking the burgundy locks.

"I'll never ask, Two Hands. You can trust in that. We both have our secrets."

A small groan left Revy's lips, turning her head until the side of her nose laid tight against the space above Balalaika's protruding collarbone. It came out in a whisper, so soft that Balalaika had to strain to hear it. "Maybe fucking... maybe one day."

Deciding it was wise not to reply to that, Balalaika ran her fingers from Revy's scalp to the ends. "It's time for you to sleep, a little bit, until you have to leave." _Or else you'll be a little bitch to help get dressed and leave. _She decided to leave that bit out. Revy on no sleep was a special kind of hell. She'd swear and whine and complain as Balalaika forced her dirty tank top over her head, if she even had the energy to sit up.

But Revy in this state was another type of hell. An admittedly worrying kind. Whitman.. fever? The mass murderer? For a while Balalaika wondered what was the difference between how Revy normally was and this strange mental state. Revy _loved_ violence. And so did she! But judging from that empty look in normally manic eyes, she understood. In a grim fucking way, she understood. She remembered long November walks with her grandfather and his funny stories and the hot chocolate grandmother had prepared for her by the time they went back home, and she understood.

Balalaika had mentioned in passing how her grandfather took her out in the woods, and lined up old bottles on their wooden fence. He didn't let her leave until she hit all of them, and Revy's face at the time was unreadable.

"I forgot I have to fucking leave."

Balalaika laid her cheek on the top of Revy's head. "I know."

* * *

I worry about the characterization- what else is new. But I enjoyed writing this. And I love a more soft!Revy. She can let her guard down around Ms. Balalaika, I think. I wish we saw more Balalaika and Revy interaction, by god. I think we can kiss goodbye any more anime adaption, though. This is probably the only pairing I've ever continuously thought about. Anyhow, hope you enjoyed.


End file.
